


Breaking Point

by Fafsernir



Series: Vax Machina [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Episode 44, Gen, and then she's back, basically vax'ildan being sad, the sunken tomb, vax feels lonely and is broken, vex dies and vax dies a little bit inside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25346140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fafsernir/pseuds/Fafsernir
Summary: Vex'ahlia falls, and she doesn't fall during battle. She doesn't even fall when Vax is around. And then she's back, and everything still hurts.
Relationships: Vax'ildan & Vex'ahlia (Critical Role)
Series: Vax Machina [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1872244
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	Breaking Point

**Author's Note:**

> I took the Campaign 2 break as an opportunity to start Campaign 1, which I had never watched. I'm binge-watching and dying over Vax and how much I relate to him, especially in those episodes. This is when Vex died and came back, in the Sunken Tomb episode. I just feel sad for Vax a lot, because he looks like a puppy and he looks so lonely and like he needs more attention than he's getting. And I love sibling dynamics.

It had taken only a few seconds, a few minutes at most. She had been fine, had been holding the rope, and then she had wandered off while he was securing Kima and looking for any loot  _ for her _ . Because he didn’t really care much about money, but he knew she cared about it, and he cared about her so much.

Then Grog was pulling him up, and everyone was silent and Zahra was over her and he didn’t know what was happening, he didn’t understand, he hadn’t seen it, he hadn’t seen anything, he hadn’t been here. He had failed her.

And she lay on the ground, her body still warm, but lifeless. She was dead. She had survived a fucking beholder, but in the few minutes it had taken him to make sure Kima was okay, she had gone. He didn’t know how or from what, but he didn’t care in that moment. Because she was gone. And a part of himself was gone with her. He had done so much, he had always tried his best to protect her. He knew he hadn’t always done so in the best way, but he had always done it with the best of intentions. To protect her, to make sure she was out of harm's way and that she wouldn’t even have to know about some of the dangers looming over her. She had enough to worry about, and he could carry some of her weight. 

He had always pictured himself going first. Because he couldn’t imagine a world where she wasn’t in.

Especially lately. Lately, he had been pushing her off, but he had been needing her more than ever. With everything going down, with his own moral questions, with the dragons, with Keyleth, with almost losing Gilmore… With all the questions, all the doubts, the feeling of being so useless for his friends, of being replacable, the feeling that Grog hated him, that the others didn’t really cared about him… Vex’ahlia was the one person he always knew cared about him and loved him.

And she was dead.

She was gone.

And then… she wasn’t. She was back with them, having no clue what had just happened, and acting so… oblivious and how could she have known? How could she know about the few long seconds she had just spent, dead on the ground, dead in his arms… And he knew he had just made a pact he would probably soon regret, but he also knew that he wouldn’t take it back for anything in the world. Because she was back. She was here. She wasn’t replaceable like him, and they all needed her.  _ He  _ needed her.

He simply walked away from it. It was too much. He couldn’t stand there and… He just couldn’t.

He didn’t go far, jumped over the hole easily, walked a few more steps, and then collapsed. He collapsed and cried for as long as he could, as long as he heard them talk and rummage through whatever shit they could find. He didn’t really care. His life had just stopped, even for the briefest moment.

It had always been a reality that Vex could die with their adventures, especially since Pike had once fallen. It had always been a possibility, but also it hadn’t. Vax had always refused to even begin to imagine such an outcome. Especially out of immediate danger. Especially when he was not there. Mostly, he had never seen it as a possibility because she simply couldn’t. She couldn’t die, because he was here, and if something started to happen, he could help her, protect her. No matter how capable she was, he was still the oldest after all, and it was just how it was. She had his back, he had hers.

He stifled the sobs when he heard them starting to move. He pressed his palms against his eyes, forcing the tears to stop. He gathered himself from the ground, slowly getting up, and easily fading in the shadows as they approached. They were all silent and he followed, quiet as well. No one asked, and no one talked. No one noticed, probably.

He wanted to hold her, he wanted to hold her so badly and tell her how much he loved her and how she couldn’t do that anymore, how he couldn’t take it another time… But he couldn’t. He couldn’t take the few steps and walk closer to her. He was afraid, afraid she wouldn’t actually be back, afraid he would hug her and she would feel as lifeless as she had. He was afraid  _ he  _ would feel lifeless. He had offered his life in exchange of hers, after all. And that exchange had seemingly been accepted. 

What if he was dead and he didn’t even know it? No one seemed to be paying him much attention after all, but then when did they? When had they last paid attention to him, listened to him, accepted him for his skills and let him use them? When had they last let him feel useful?

He knew it was his own brain and his own self-doubts whispering all these questions to him, but sometimes he couldn’t help but listen to the voice, and feel like he was nothing, feel like he wasn’t really part of the group. 

He had lost something this day. And he wasn’t even sure of what it was. It hurt, it hurt more so than on other days, even on the bad ones, and he had been getting a lot of those lately.

But Vex was alive. Vex lived and it was all that mattered.

It was so obvious that she was the most important person in his life, but sometimes it took one of them almost dying, or actually dying, for him to remember just how true this statement was. He couldn’t carry on without her, he didn’t want to. She was the source of his strength, she was the reason he was doing all this. It was the two of them, against the rest of the world. And he now had to live with the very high possibility that she could be gone in a matter of seconds, the instant he had his back turned. He just had to keep an eye on her, to make sure she was alright and alive. He wouldn’t let her out of his sight anymore, he would stealth ahead with her, or keep an eye on her from the shadows.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr @fafsernir if you wanna chat about CR, dnd and stuff ;D


End file.
